


Serenata

by playwithdinos



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Childhood Friends to Lovers, F/M, I'm not even kidding, Phantom of the Opera AU, not even vaguely historically accurate so don't judge me, touch starved, touch starved Solas, touch starved lavellan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:39:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwithdinos/pseuds/playwithdinos
Summary: How could any of them know what would happen, when Vivienne took ill the night before the opening of Hannibal? When she swept across the stage in her beautiful gown and said, “Don’t be ridiculous—of course I have an understudy. Miss Lavellan, my star pupil.”There is no Opera Ghost in these halls—there is something far worse, instead.





	Serenata

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [valyrias](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valyrias) for her invaluable beta work, as always.
> 
>  **Serenata:** A song or composition in someone’s honour. Originally, a musical greeting performed for a lover.

Lavellan is nine when her father dies.

There is no money to pay for his headstone—the sale of his battered fiddle only pays for the plot in the graveyard. They let her put up a little wooden stake, and though she does her best to carve his name into it, she knows the wind will just blow it over, one of these days.

So she goes back to the street corner where he used to play, but there is no music for her to dance to—so she sells flowers she’s found, scattered about the city. She knows most of them aren’t very pretty, but she finds an elderberry tree that’s still blooming, so she picks the little white blossoms and uses those to fill in the gaps between all the other flowers. Hoping they make everything else look a little nicer.

No one really stops, though that shouldn’t surprise her. Not a lot of people stopped for her father’s fiddle playing. Hardly anyone, really.

“I always do.”

She jumps a little, startled. And she looks around, and— _there_ , just beside her, standing as if he’s been there the whole time, is an older boy. Maybe sixteen, she thinks, looking down at her from behind a mess of very pale hair, with even paler eyes.

As she stares up at him, he blinks down at her.

“Oh,” he says, “you can see me?”

It’s such a weird question that she has to answer it. “Can’t everyone?”

He smiles a little. It doesn’t really look right—like parts of his face forget they’re supposed to move, too—but his eyes _almost_ light up, so she smiles back, because that must have made him happy.

“Spinning, swinging, swaying—you used to dance, while he played.” He tilts his head a little, as if he’s thinking, and his eyes dart to the dried blood on her lip, and her knuckles. “Split and seeping,” he says, softer, “from a scrap in the street, for a scrap to eat. I know where you can go—I can help. I want to.”

He holds out his hand.

After a moment, she takes it.

He leads her down the street, past carriages and men in fine suits, ladies in very pretty dresses, and he takes her to a big building, with tall columns. He takes her around back, and leads her past a wooden door.

He takes her all around—and she hears someone singing, higher and lovelier than she’s ever heard anyone sing. She gets a glimpse of a stage like the one her father used to play on—but bigger, and she doesn’t see anywhere to buy drinks, just rows and rows of seats.

Behind the stage, there’s a whole world.

People running everywhere, carrying big dresses, or giant bouquets, or swords that are very shiny but don’t look like you could actually hurt someone with them. People run by with lengths of rope, with arms full of paper, ferns in pots as big as she is, and the strange boy tells her to press against a wall as four men push a very big, odd-looking carriage past them.

At the end of it all, he takes her to another door, and he knocks on it until a woman calls for him to come in.

But the woman doesn’t even see her new friend—she just looks up from whatever she’s writing, gives her one look up and down, and says, “How did you get in here?”

She doesn’t really know how, or understand it—but her friend whispers into the woman’s ear, even though she doesn’t seem to notice him in the room, and the woman’s gaze turns much more assessing.

“Well,” she says, after a very long pause, “we do have openings for young ballerinas, I suppose. Come, girl—spin a little for me.”

“My name is Cole,” he tells her, later, after she has signed a contract that will pay for her father’s headstone, and her food, and a place to stay, as long as she dances like they tell her to.

There is a pretty lady singing along to the piano, still. Cole showed her the way to the seats high up, on the _second balcony_ , so they can watch and listen while she eats a meat pie.

She doesn’t know where he got it. The lady in the office told her she’d have to wait until suppertime to eat.

“Am I the only one who can see you, Cole?”

“Yes,” he says.

That seems strange. But also very sad—and Cole rocks a little, back and forth, the moment she thinks that.

“Walls and walls of wool coats, walking by without even wondering. A widower plays a sad, sad song, and a little girl dances, but they just walk by.” He tilts his head, not looking down at the stage or at her, or at anything at all.

“Maybe we’re the same,” she suggests, holding out her pie. He does not take it, but instead blinks down at it for a bit. “Maybe if I help you, everyone will see you again.”

He gives her that not-smile, again—but she thinks it looks a bit better, this time.

 

Fourteen years after she entered the opera house begging for a job, Lavellan closes the soprano’s dressing room door behind her, leans against it for a moment, and listens for the click of elegant heels retreating down the hallway in distinct, measured steps.

The soprano the papers have dubbed _Madame de Fer_ hesitates in the hallway, however, instead of immediately retreating.

“My dear,” she says, her voice muffled through the doorway, “know that I will never blame you for the actions of a madman.”

Vivienne is often accused of being cold or cruel—but Lavellan can hear the apology in her words, clear as day. She closes her eyes, her hands making fists at her sides.

“Others, however…” She can hear the sound of Vivienne’s fine jewellery as she shakes her head. “You may always come to me for advice. That has not changed.”

She listens as Vivienne promptly turns and walks down the hall—the sound of her heels clicking precisely, without even the slightest hint of a scuff, until it fades entirely. And then she listens a while longer, before she starts to sag against the door.

But her boot slides on papers that have scattered on the floor, and her eyes flutter open to a mess made of a dressing room—tables overturned, props scattered, costume dresses on the floor, slashed several times with a knife. Utterly ruining them for the woman they were meant to fit.

These things do not _belong_ to Vivienne—they belong to the opera house. Vivienne hasn’t kept a thing of her own here in years, since they first made a habit of vanishing mysteriously. But the point has been made, either way—the house’s leading soprano is not welcome here any longer.

 _Opera ghost_ , she thinks, and if she had any less sense she’d be rolling her eyes.

No, she remembers the first time she saw that twisted visage through the mirror across the room well enough; every move she makes is being watched in this damned place.

“Well I hope you’re happy,” she says to that mirror now, straightening. “The most talented soprano this side of Thedas is walking out the door, all because _you don’t like her_.”

More likely because he cannot control her—she has too much clout, too many connections. And perhaps Vivienne has been too kind to the orphaned daughter of a street corner fiddle player, all those years since she happened upon her singing a lullaby to the younger girls.

How could any of them know what would happen, when Vivienne took ill the night before the opening of _Hannibal_? When she swept across the stage in her beautiful gown and said, “Don’t be ridiculous—of course I have an understudy. Miss Lavellan, my star pupil.”

And now her teacher is removed from the picture—and though the cut isn’t clean, the message it leaves is plain to see. Who else will he _remove_ , if she steps out of line?

She glares at the mirror a while longer for good measure—though she doubts it’s the only way he can watch her in this room—before she bends to pick up the scattered pages of a score at her feet with shaking hands.

As she’s righting the table, she hears a polite knock on the door.

“Dorian, if you’re here to try to talk me out of this _again_ ,” she snaps as she hears it creak open, “you can just leave.”

But the door hangs open, not closing, and there is no argument begun on the heel of her words—so she turns, and it is Solas who stands in the doorway instead. In his familiar, unassuming, worn grey suit, and his violin case in hand.

“Miss Lavellan,” he says, demurely dropping his gaze to his feet—but not before giving the room around her a quick, calculating glance. So fast that anyone else would miss it, unless they were looking for it. “Forgive me. But I have a carriage arranged to visit the cemetery—I thought I would see if you would still like to accompany me.”

His knuckles as he grips the doorknob are white, but his expression is calm and relaxed. Giving away nothing.

“Of course,” she says. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be along in a moment.”

He nods, casts one more sweeping glance around the room, and then retreats—closing the door behind him.

Her hands are still shaking—and she can hear her blood rushing in her ears, feel her heart hammering against her ribs.

 

“Oy!” Sera calls, leaning on one crutch and waving the other in the air, as if Lavellan will not see her at the other end of the empty hallway.

Now fifteen, Lavellan has become responsible for many of the younger dancers—and while initially her chest had swelled with pride, as if a great honour had been bestowed on her, it also means that she’s responsible for _Sera_ , too.

Eleven year old Sera, who broke her leg two days into her dance training by walking right off the stage when the instructor kept telling her what to do. She had fallen right into the orchestra pit, and was seriously lucky that she hadn’t broken her neck, or gotten herself kicked out of the opera.

But Lavellan had—foolishly, she now thinks—promised to look after her and to find work for her. So little Sera has been hobbling after her on crutches for a week and a half, now, asking a million questions and poking her when she’s bored and sitting in on her sessions with Madame Vivienne, and being sort of generally a pain.

But in all honestly, having Sera around isn’t so bad. She usually has something funny to say, whenever Lavellan feels down. And she can make the younger girls laugh, when their instructors have been too cruel, and make them forget about how hungry they are, if rehearsals run late.

Sera going missing, however— _that’s_ the thing to worry about.

“Where have you been?” Lavellan scolds, crossing her arms over her chest and straightening her back. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“There’s some weird kid runnin’ around backstage,” Sera blurts as she practically _swings_ herself down the hall using her crutches. She might honestly be faster with a broken leg than a healthy one.

She has to suppress a frustrated sigh. “Sera,” she says, “you _are_ a weird kid.”

“Well, _yeah_.” Sera wobbles to a halt before her—neglecting to put her good leg down, she just swings back and forth on her crutches. As she is wont to do, no matter how many times she is told that she will break her _other_ leg doing that. “But I never seen ‘im before. Not even when I’m followin’ you around, and you know _everybody—_ and I saw him goin’, like, _downwards_ , where all the dead people are.”

“So you came to me about it and not someone older than say, sixteen, because…?”

Sera plants her good foot on the ground so she can shrug. “Dunno,” she says. “They all think I’m, like, you know. But you don’t—and you’re _big people_ now, yeah?

She is pretty certain that she is neither affluent nor tall enough to fit any possible definition of “big people,” but she doubts that Sera would listen to her if she tried to explain that.

“Fine,” she says instead, throwing her hands up in the air. “I’ll go see what all the fuss is about.”

The _downwards_ , as Sera so eloquently calls it, is where some of the opera house foundation has been slowly collapsing for years, opening up the old catacombs that run under much of the old parts of the city. Plenty of old buildings have that problem, apparently—though the owner of the opera house hadn’t known about his basement literally falling into a pit of skeletons, bit by bit every year, because the dancers and stage hands and front of house staff had all quite enjoyed coming down here to drink in the middle of particularly long rehearsals.

Unfortunately, management found out about it earlier in the month, and it’s been strictly off limits ever since, while they repair the foundation and brick up the unsightly hole.

As it stands, they’re about halfway—they’ve boarded up the floor with heavy wooden planks, but they’ve only got the hole in the wall only about half covered. Apparently there was a disagreement with the carpenters about wages—shocking, really—and no one’s been near the place in a week, aside from Samson who’s usually patrolling the place like some sort of drunk, angry dog.

He’s not here at the moment, however—and sure enough, she can see light coming over the shoddy half-wall, and she can hear movement down below.

It’s a bit taller than she is—but she’s been climbing in and out of places that she’s not supposed to be for as long as she can remember. Now she just does it in nice boots instead of bare feet.

She doesn’t have to drop down to the bottom, thankfully—all she has to do is clamber down the scaffolding built up to support the new floor. It would probably be easier in trousers, but thankfully fashion dictates her skirts be hemmed to show off her polished black boots, and so all she has to do is tuck one end up in her belt.

Vivienne would probably have heart failure if she saw her star pupil climbing down into a mud-soaked catacomb in her fine clothing.

She _is_ careful not to get it filthy—she checks the length of her skirt to ensure it won’t get covered in mud before she lets it down from her belt, and she makes sure to get a good look at the state of the ground she’s standing on before she starts to make her way over to her target.

He’s a boy about her age, she thinks. His hair is a little too long for current men’s fashion, and because it’s tied back with a dark ribbon she can see his pointed ears. Even if it wasn’t, the glint of his eyes in his own lantern light gives him away as an elf in a heartbeat. As she gets closer, she’s certain she’s never seen his face before—it’s very distinctive. It’s like he’s made up entirely of sharp lines, like his face is all cheekbones and jaw and narrowed eyes, and everything else was added after the fact. An afterthought.

As she studies him, he happens to glance her way—and then he looks _again_ , and he’s so startled that he nearly drops the lantern.

But though it swings rather dramatically in his grasp, and he turns so fast he nearly slips in the mud and falls ass-first into centuries of decay, he catches himself. A good thing, too—elf eyes aside, she’d really rather not have to make that climb back up in the pitch black.

He doesn’t respond, however—after he’s recovered himself, he kind of just looks her up and down, his lips parted, as if he wants to say something but doesn’t quite seem to think it’s a good idea.

“Well?” she asks, when his silence draws on far too long. “Are you going to explain yourself?”

He blinks at her as if he hadn’t expected her to be capable of speech, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes—but only _just_. She’s rather sick of educated young men who get all tongue-tied within fifty paces of the average girl their own age.

“This place is _off limits_ ,” she scolds, and takes the last few strides that bring her directly into his lantern’s light. She plants her feet in the mud and one hand on her hip— _nearly_ two, but she remembers how childish that looks and the left just sort of ends up… hanging in the air.

Just as she hopes he doesn’t notice, his eyes flick down to her hand, and the awkward recovery she attempts to make. Then he relaxes, but his brow furrows and his lips turn, and it’s hard to tell in the lantern light but she thinks his cheeks look a little flushed.

“And I suppose you are the one in charge of regulating access to historic areas of the city?” he says, his gaze flicking up and down her dress once more before meeting hers, unflinching.

She fights the urge to smooth down her skirts under his gaze—a bad habit Vivienne is _determined_ to rid her of. “Well, who else?” she retorts, holding her chin a little higher. She’s unable to keep a little teasing smile off her features—too cocky by far, she knows. Vivienne’s always telling her that a little meekness would benefit her, when talking to her betters, but this boy’s hardly older than she is, and trespassing besides.

And he does have the most _amusing_ scowl. His face is all scrunched up like he’s eaten a lemon.

He examines her a moment longer before shaking his head. “I don’t have time to explain myself to you,” he says, starting to turn away from her. “I assure you, I do not intend to cause any trouble. Now, if you will be on your way—”

“Creators,” she says, half laughing. “You’re looking for the Opera Ghost, aren’t you?”

He stiffens. “And if I am?”

She can’t help a giggle—he sounds so _serious_. “Well, I’ll save you the trouble—he doesn’t exist.”

He scoffs. “I suppose _you_ would be the expert in that particular field?”

“Well, I’ve lived in this opera house since I was nine, and I’ve never seen him.”

“I don’t suspect you’ve _looked_ very hard, with your attitude.”

“Who’s down there?” comes a voice from the theater above, and she nearly jumps right out of her skin.

She spits his name like a curse. “ _Samson_.”

The boy’s scowl deepens, and he starts to raise his lantern over his head.

“Put it out!” she hisses, but the boy ignores her.

Frantic, she jumps up to snatch it out of his grasp—and she does manage to knock it out of his hand, but it slips from her fingers before she can properly grab it.

The lantern hits the soft mud without breaking or the flame inside going out. Which is such an impossible thing in her mind that she just stares at it a moment as is lies in the dirt, that tiny flame flickering away, encased in glass that didn’t even crack in the fall.

“Well done,” the boy snaps.

Before he can bend over to retrieve his unusually sturdy lantern, she hears a metallic _click_.

She has a moment to think, oddly, that it sounds an awful lot like a prop pistol.

Then there is a gunshot, the lantern’s glass shatters, and they are plunged into darkness.

For half a heartbeat, she could swear she’s gone deaf. But then she hears, forceful as a kick to the back, Samson yelling somewhere behind her as he starts to climb down the scaffolding, his boots heavy on the wooden supports. “—up to here with you Maker-damned _ghost enthusiasts_ wandering around like you own the place—”

By this point, her eyes have adjusted to what little light pours in from the opera house above. The boy is still standing in front of her, stock-still, and what she can make of his expression gives her the impression that he’s about to stand his ground and fight built-like-a-brick-house Samson with his bare hands.

She grabs his hand and starts running.

It's a mad, desperate dash through the dark to get away from Samson. The boy keeps pace with her, in spite of his bookish appearance, never letting go of her hand once, his breathing behind her the whole while, steady yet quiet. She navigates by memory, and by luck; with the lantern gone, there's only the light coming in through the occasional drain on the street, or cracks in the earth above them.

For once, however, it seems that luck is not on her side.

She trips, and nearly takes the strange boy down with her. She lets go of his hand to try and catch herself (and to avoid pulling him down on top of her) but she scrambles for purchase in the dark, and she falls awkwardly. Even knowing how to fall, how to catch herself from great leaps...

Graceful as she is, she falls, and something in her ankle snaps.

It takes every ounce of self-control she has not to scream.

She does grunt—she's hardly perfect—and she nearly bites her tongue, her teeth clack together so hard once she collides with the ground.

Samson is still coming behind her—yelling, stomping through mud and over stone. Her fingers curl in the mud beneath her, and she tries to get up off the ground but the minute she puts weight on her foot, pain shoots up her leg and she collapses once again.

_Shit. Shit. Shit—_

When she tries again, there are hands on her. She flinches away at first—but, no, Samson is still too far back.

The strange boy helps her to her feet, slings her arm over his shoulder, and half-carries her somewhere dark, small, and out of the way. Small enough that she’s pressed up against him on one side, and something smooth and cold on the other.

She loses track of how long they wait there—crammed up against one another, trying desperately not to breathe too loud. But eventually Samson does seem to get tired of stumbling around in the dark, and his curses turn to muttering, until that eventually fades away on its own.

“Are you hurt?” the boy asks, softly.

“Shit,” she says into the still air of the ancient catacomb, nearly shouting like it’s burst out of her. “Shit. Not— _fuck.”_

“… A simple yes or no would have sufficed,” he tells her, dryly.

He starts to shift under her, and she curses again. And again, as she braces herself on the hard surface on one side of her until the boy can properly support her again, and gets them both upright again.

The hard surface turns out to be a large stone coffin. There are carvings on top, worn down by water through the ages so she can’t make out their shapes with her hands.

“I would offer to take a look at it for you,” he says, “but there’s not enough light.”

She half-laughs, but there’s too much pain in it to pretend it’s genuine. “So you’re a doctor and a ghost hunter, then? What other fascinating hobbies you must have.”

“I dabble,” he retorts. She can hear him fumbling around in his jacket, the soft rustle of clothing, and a moment later he lights a match. It takes him a few tries—he fumbles one entirely to the ground, which is a little odd.

With his little, temporary light, he finds a candle left behind. By whoever built this place, or whoever came down here for a private romp, she can’t guess. He sets the candle on the stone beside her, kneels in the mud, and—as gently as he can—guides her boot off her foot.

Her nails scratch the stone beneath her, but she makes no noise of complaint.

He places her boot gently on the ground beside him, right side up, and then cups her heel in his palm while he runs his fingers up and down her ankle. His touch is gentle, fleeting, but every brush she can feel through her stockings sends a shock of pain straight up her leg, all the way up her spine.

He’s awfully quiet—and she’s so focused on keeping it together that she nearly misses when he says, “I believe you should remove your stocking, so I can get a better look.”

She snorts. “Never seen a girl’s leg before?”

He shifts uncomfortably.

Probably not, she thinks, finding it in her to feel a _little_ bad. He is, after all, just trying to help.

She reaches under her skirt for the top of her stocking, and starts to pull it down.

He averts his gaze, which is… actually sort of a nice change from the leering of some of the older male dancers.

She can only reach so far down without hissing in pain, however, so he pulls it off her foot for her. Then he stares at her bare leg for a moment, his wide eyes gleaming in the candlelight, before he very deliberately hands her back her stocking.

When he touches her again, it’s like he’s afraid to.

“Your nail is broken,” he says. “How—how long ago? And why…?”

She almost laughs. “You’ve never seen a ballerina’s foot before, I gather.” When he blinks up at her, clearly baffled, she says, “It’s the pointe shoes. They do that.”

He frowns, as if her explanation is upsetting to him. But he goes back to scowling at her foot, and with gentle touches attempts to move her foot. When she hisses in pain, he stops.

“I suspect it is broken, not sprained,” he explains after a moment longer of feeling around. “There is only swelling in one area, so I do not think it is a severe break…”

“Shit,” she says, rolling her head back, but there’s nothing but air in the space behind her. She balls her hands into fists, nails scratching on the stone.

She’s not going to cry in front of a stranger. She’s not—she’s _not_.

“It will heal,” her assures her, rapidly. “It is—a month, perhaps, if it is properly isolated—”

“A month!” She reaches up and presses a shaking hand to her face. “Fuck. I can’t—” And she can feel hot, angry tears forming, threatening to spill down her face, but _damn them_ , damn everything, crying isn’t _useful_ it just makes everything a mess—

“What’s wrong?” he says, softly. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, but—”

“What was it all for, then?” she blurts. “For what? How many years of my creators-damned life did I spend here, cleaning and tidying and spinning in perfect fucking circles and making sure my toes are always _pointed_ , and making sure everyone else’s toes are always _pointed_ and we’re always _smiling_ like we’re happy—and now they’ll just kick me out. Two dancers with broken legs? We’re going to starve to death on the street in a week, and I’ll have spent the last six years _here_ , when I could have done that in the first place. What’s the _fucking point_?”

She buries her face in her hands.

The boy kneeling before her doesn’t say a word. Maybe he’s frantically pretending she’s not crying, or maybe he’s the sort who panics at the sight of a young woman crying her eyes out in the middle of a catacomb. Either way, he is silent while she tries to stop the hot, angry, _useless_ tears that are streaming down her face.

“All that work,” she manages to say between sobs, “all that… _hope_. Wasted because I had to go chasing some _ghost hunter_ out of the opera house.”

She cries a moment longer, until she feels a gentle touch on her arm. Directing her attention to him—still kneeling before her. There’s an odd look in his eyes that she can’t quite place—something determined about the set of his features. Like he’s a little afraid, and trying not to be.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asks.

She stares at him for a moment, but his expression doesn’t waver. “What?”

“A secret,” he says again. “If I—if I help you, can you promise to tell no one?”

He looks very serious. It looks better on him than when she accused him of hunting ghosts in the lantern light. It does something very peculiar to all the lines on his face—and he starts to look something like a painting, instead of an awkward boy.

She nods, very slowly. “I—I promise.”

He watches her a moment longer, that intense expression on his face, before he seems to decide something, takes a deep breath, and bows his head once more.

And when he takes her foot again, his hands begin to glow.

She holds her breath, and she watches with wide eyes as he guides his hands up and over her ankle. As his hands pass over the break, she winces at the truly bizarre sensation of the bone shifting back into place, and an odd heat that makes her pain spike, for one _excruciating_ moment, before it rapidly dulls to an ache, that in turn vanishes into nothing.

And then he brings his hands lower still, running his thumb over the broken nail. She watches as the skin heals, as the old blood is cleared away, and the nail slowly fuses back together where she hadn’t been able to trim it off. Good as new.

The light fades, and there is only the candle to see him by once again as he retrieves her boot, and slips it back onto her foot without looking up at her. And then, without a word, he stands, and then after taking a very deliberate breath, he holds his hand out. Still looking at the ground.

She takes it, gingerly but without hesitation. His skin is warm, and she thinks it might be buzzing a little with lingering magic. There are callouses on his fingers she hadn’t noticed before, and she finds the difference between them and the rest of his skin, soft and smooth, holds her attention as he gently helps her to her feet.

She feels no pain. She stands there as that sinks in, stocking in one hand, his in her other.

He is still not quite looking at her.

“Thank you,” she says, finally breaking the utter silence. “I… _ma serannas._ I don’t…”

He glances sideways at her, and offers a small smile.

“Solas,” he says. “My name is Solas.”

 

Bull offers her a hand up into the carriage—which she takes, graciously. She sits across from Solas with little more than a polite smile, and avoids looking at him until Bull closes the door.

And just like that, she reaches for Solas, and he for her.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she breathes as he crushes her to him, and she clings as if she’ll never let go.

“It’s alright,” he whispers as the carriage jerks into motion. She can feel his fingers snaking into her hair, and she doesn’t have the heart to stop him. “I have you.”

She kisses him, then—thanking every Creator she can that she hasn’t painted her lips today—and she tastes his breath as he responds in kind. Capturing her lips with his, teeth grazing her skin in his desperation.

His hand in her hair shakes—his hand steadying the small of her back shakes. He trembles all over as he holds her, as their lips slide against one another, as she presses closer, as her fingers curl in his jacket and she tries to forget about everything but _him_ , here.

They break, eventually—gasping for air, she buries her face in his neck, breathing in the musty smell of his clothes, and he holds her, his face in her hair, his breath on her skin.

“Don’t do this,” he says. So soft, and desperate— _oh_ , her heart aches at the sound.

She scoffs. “And here I thought you liked our carriage trysts,” she tries to quip, but it comes out flat.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“ _Vhenan_ —” He pauses to breathe. “I have spoken with the others. We can help you flee.”

She sighs. “So he can just follow me? So I can spend the rest of my life waiting for him to find me?”

He clings a little tighter to her. “I would not allow it,” he says, so softly she barely hears it.

She huffs into his neck, and then pulls back—he lets her, but his fingers curl in her dress as she does. She’s straddling him on the seat, she realises, and allows herself to feel a touch of amusement at that. Like they’re teenagers again, fumbling in closets of the salons their respective teachers frequented. Cassandra or Varric covering for them, more often than not.

Oh, but it’s hard not to miss those days. Everything was simpler, then.

“I’m not going to hide somewhere while he picks off my friends one by one until he finds me,” she says.

“We are not so helpless.”

She sighs—and just for a moment, lets herself get lost in him all over again. In his eyes, so wide and desperate…

She feels like it’s been years since she just touched him. Since she could be this close. It’s been nothing but stolen glances, lingering looks, desperate chords from his violin heard from the stage, her arms reaching as she danced with Dorian in the masquerade, reaching for _him_ , seated on the side of the ballroom. His bow in hand, his eyes never leaving hers as he played.

“I miss you,” she confesses, softly. Not to distract him from their conversation, but—but it’s like she’s drunk on him, suddenly. Like she hasn’t had him in so long, too terrified of what this so-called phantom would do to him if he _knew_.

His expression softens. “And I, you,” he answers.

The carriage swerves, and she has to squeeze her legs tight on his so she doesn’t take a tumble. She can hear Bull curse at another driver, distantly—but just as she turns her head, as if to reach for the curtain and see what the matter is, Solas reaches up with one hand and cups her cheek. Directing her gaze back to his, so he may kiss her again—slower now, but no less urgent.

His other hand still rests at the small of her back. As their lips slide, as he teases hers between his teeth, as her breaths begin to quicken and his lips begin to tremble, she feels a warmth start to build, starting from his hand, pressing her closer to him.

He pauses, then—and he does not pull back as he whispers, “ _Ar lath ma._ ”

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she breathes in reply, her hands slipping lower down his suit.

He catches them, however, and she feels a pang for the loss of his steadying touch on her back. “We are not finished with this conversation,” he says, but there is a heat to his words that makes her smile.

“We can continue it later, if you like. These carriages are famously slow,” she replies, and he laughs—low and soft, like things were little over a year ago. When it was just Solas, and her, in that little bed in the attic of the house he’s inherited from Wisdom, bare legs tangled as he curled his fingers in her hair and he _laughed_ as her lips brushed his neck, as too-light touches trailed down his sides.

Before Vivienne took ill. Before she stepped in to fill _Madame de Fer’s_ place, sang her first opera as Soprano, and all their lives changed for good.

Her request is not as flippant as it might have been, back then—she cannot bear to pull back and tease him, to look at him with hooded eyes and play at coyness.

Maybe she trembles a little. Maybe she clutches his hands a little too desperately, and maybe her smile fades as his laugh trails off, and she remembers that they’re in a _carriage_ , and she has been too frightened to even speak his _name_ for months, in order to keep him safe.

But he grips her just as tight, and whispers, “I have instructed Bull to take the longest route.”

And then he’s kissing her again, and he’s shaking, too.

The carriage lurches again—and Solas lets go of her hands to steady her hips, which are frankly under _too many layers_ all of a sudden. Her hands find his neck, his collar, and then the buttons on his coat as she chases his lips, as she drinks in the breath coming out of him, as his teeth tease and his fingers _dig in_ , hard enough she can feel them through her skirts.

She gets the last button on his jacket undone and he breaks—for air, she thinks, but then he ducks his head and his lips are on her neck. Her heart races and she bares her throat for him, her lips parting, as she blindly reaches to push his jacket off his shoulders.

He lets go of her only long enough to oblige her—and as the carriage rattles down the road, she clutches his shoulders to steady herself.

She can feel the movement of muscle and bone under his shirt, as he shoves the jacket off his arms.

It’s not enough. It’s not _enough_.

He lathes his tongue across her neck, and she _moans_ , and his hands go for the buttons at the front of her dress.

She squeezes her legs tight against his, steadying herself, and the moan he makes against her throat sends a bolt of lightning right up her spine.

She tries to undo the buttons of his shirt. She gets his collar and his bowtie undone, but the angle is awkward for the rest—his arms in the way as his fingers, quick and nimble from years and _years_ of playing sweeping chords and delightful runs, make quick work of the buttons at the front of her dress. His kisses drawing lower, lingering longer, as his lips find more of her skin bared for him.

“Solas,” she breathes. “ _Vhenan_ , I need to feel you.”

He is kissing the skin he has bared, above her chemise. “Feel me, then,” he replies, his voice low.

“ _All_ of you,” she whines, fumbling at his clothes but not finding the next damn _button_. “On me— _in_ me— _please_ , Solas.”

A sound escapes his throat, so low and warm that she can feel it like a physical thing hammering in her chest alongside her heart.

“Yes,” is all he says, before pulling back.

He starts on his shirt while she shoves her sleeves off, the top of her dress falling about her waist. She reaches back for the ribbon that ties her corset, but the carriage lurches again, and she has to catch herself on Solas’s shoulders.

The shirt is loose enough now that she nearly slips as it slides right down his arm—and he laughs a little as he catches her, but it sounds desperate, now.

She is thoroughly distracted by his shoulder—more specifically, where it meets his neck, which is now so delightfully bared for her. Her fingers tug his undershirt out of the way, and she mouths at his neck, dragging her teeth along his skin, pressing her tongue to his pulse just to feel it racing, just to feel _him_ , his skin flushed and nearly as hot as she feels, right now.

So distracted that she doesn’t notice he’s even untying her corset until it’s undone.

She gasps—even though she never lets anyone tie hers very tight—and she has to lean back so he can pull it over her head, followed by her chemise.

And then she is bare to him, and he is pressing her back into the opposite seat so he can pull her skirts off of her.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she pleads, reaching for his belt.

He answers her by shoving his shirt off his arms, and pulling his undershirt over his head.

She kicks off her boots, and barely gets one of her stockings off before Solas is upon her again, pressing fevered kisses to her breasts.

She tries to reach for his belt again, but he is pressed too close—so close she can feel him through his trousers, _hard_ , and she _whines_ , rocking so her leg grinds against him as his lips close around her nipple.

He _groans_ , the sound of it vibrating against her skin.

“ _Solas_ ,” she gasps.

He swirls his tongue around her nipple in reply—and then sucks once, hard, before his kisses begin to wander further down.

The carriage comes to a stop as he does—and she worries, for a moment, that their journey is over, but she hears Bull up front.

She’s not sure, but she thinks he’s _asking for directions_.

She almost laughs at that. _Bless that man_ , she thinks.

And then Solas’s kisses draw further down, and his hands are coaxing her legs apart, and she doesn’t have it in her to think of anyone else.

He kisses her, gently, slowly, but with no less urgency—he mouths her open while she props her feet up on the opposite seat, and he kneels on the carriage floor.

He runs his hands up and down her thighs, making soft little approving noises as he explores her. Not as slow and steady as she knows he likes to—and she would _love_ him to, at any other time—but he is no less diligent, no less thorough as he laps at her clit, then her opening, and then her clit again.

She scrambles to find purchase— _anywhere_ , really, but has the frame of mind to realise that perhaps the door handle would not be wise, and that tugging at the curtains might be telling if anyone were to glance at them.

She is dimly aware that she is starting to get a bit loud—that her breaths are becoming gasps, and sighs, and she can hear the pitch of each climbing higher. And it probably _should_ concern her more, but the streets are loud, and the carriage rattles down cobblestones as it lurches forward again—

Solas slips a finger inside her, and she can’t hear a damn thing but the blood rushing in her ears, and his pleased little sigh that rushes against her flesh.

She rocks down against him, desperate now—and her fingers brush over his scalp, fumble over the tips of his ears, desperate for _him_ , more of him, however she can get it.

He inserts another finger while she scrambles for purchase, for _him_ , and as he curls his fingers she lets out an obscene cry, half-stifled by her own hand.

“ _Ar lath_ ,” she pants, high and whining, as her hips rock against his face. “ _Ar—ar lath—_ ”

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he whispers against her skin, as his fingers work her open.

“Solas,” she cries, as he sucks at her clit. “Solas, _vhenan_ , please. Please—I need. I need—”

He adds another finger, and she does not even have the frame of mind to stifle her cry. Her heart is racing. Her skin is on fire, where he is touching her, and everywhere he is not _aches_. He is filling her with fingers and igniting her with his lips but it’s not enough, she wants—she wants—

She kicks her leg in the general direction of his pants—even her toes can’t quite reach. And then she reaches down for his chin, and with gentle, urgent touches, guides him to look up at her.

In the darkness of the carriage, his lips are a mess of slick, slightly swollen from use. His clothes are in a rumpled mess either on the seat behind him, or on the floor around him, and he’s kneeling on her dress.

His eyes are dark, dark circles as he looks up at her with parted lips.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she whines, “I need you. _All_ of you.”

He licks his lips. “ _Ma nuvenin_ ,” he answers in a growl, and allows her to pull him up to her.

They fumble over the rest of his clothes together—and she’s not certain she helps a whole lot, desperate and frantic as she is, but she mouths at his throat some more while her hands keep getting tangled in his, and he laughs into her hair, then curses, softly.

He has to lean back to get his trousers off—and she watches as he pulls off his underclothes at the same time, smiling at how hard he is. _Very_ flushed, down there, and already leaking.

He doesn’t look like he needs it, but she reaches for him all the same, getting up to her knees on the seat so she can feel him properly. Running her hand up and down him, exploring—capturing his lower lip between her teeth, and worrying at it, just to feel him tremble.

His hand slides down to the small of her back, and presses her closer to him. His cock pressing against her stomach, her hand cupping his balls, her nipples rubbing against his chest…

The carriage lurches, and they fall—Solas catches her on top of him as he lands in his seat, legs spreading a little to accommodate her.

It’s as good a position as any, she thinks, kneeling on either side of his hips. Drawing her hand slowly back up his shaft once more, for good measure.

He _moans_ into her lips, obscene and low. She whines a little in reply.

She breaks the kiss, and he drops his head to mouth at her throat while she sinks down onto him.

Perhaps she rushes it a little—it’s been a while since the last time they could do this. But she’s urgent enough, and he’s been thorough enough that there’s only a slight pause, before she can feel herself stretch enough for him. And then he’s inside her, full, and she’s pressed as tight to him as she’ll ever be—her arms coming to rest around his neck, one of his hands at the small of her back, the other buried in her hair, keeping it to one side while he presses soft, urgent kisses to her neck.

She feels like she’s burning alive—but she just makes herself be _still_ , for a moment. To appreciate the stretch of him inside her, the heat of his lips and tongue on her skin, the small movements he’s making enough to make his chest move against hers, ever so slightly, and even _that_ just makes her feel like sparks are running up and down her spine.

“ _Ar lath ma_ ,” he whispers against her neck.

“Don’t let me go,” she breathes.

He huffs, softly. “For as long as you wish,” he replies.

The noise she stifles is less one of pleasure, and more like a sob.

The carriage jerks again, and it makes her bounce a little on him. Solas gasps, his hands drop to her hips to steady her at the same time as his jerk _forward—_

And the moment is passed, and they are moving. Solas pulling back as she rises a little, his fingers digging in as he helps her up, and then thrusting forward as he guides her back down.

She tries to go slow. Tries to make it last—but every slight absence of him is unbearable, and each time she rushes down to meet him. Even kissing him again doesn’t help—she _needs_ him, and she clings to his shoulders, slips her tongue in her mouth so that he’ll answer with his own, and she grinds down on his every thrust harder, faster, eating up the moans that escape his throat with her lips, her tongue, answering in kind with her own soft, urgent sounds, that climb higher and higher as she takes him in again, and again, and again. Faster, deeper, _harder_ —

He pulls her off of him, abruptly, and she cries out in dismay. But his arms are straining, she finally notices, and he is guiding her down to the carriage floor.

She lies on top of her dress, and he stretches above her, drawing his hand up and down her side as he just… looks at her.

She’s still clutching his shoulders. “Solas,” she whines, digging her nails in.

His hands slide low, past her hips, sliding down her thighs—until he guides his legs over his hips, lines himself up, and thrusts inside her again.

“Yes,” she sighs, rolling her head back as he fills her.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he breathes, before ducking down to kiss her neck.

She curls her arms around him _tighter_ , and she is rewarded by another thrust, which she answers in kind with a roll of her hips.

He moans into her skin, and thrusts again, and again. She writhes beneath him, bucking her hips up to meet him, over and over, clutching him, knowing her nails are drawing frantic lines all over his back but she _can’t_ _help it_ , any more than she can help the cries that are building within her, climbing higher with every thrust of his hips, every kiss he presses to his skin, and the slide of him within her.

She says his name, over and over. Higher, and higher, as she burns hotter, and every brush of his skin on hers ignites her all over again.

His thrusts turn shallow, and more frequent—and he slips one hand between them, as she begs and whines, to rub his thumb against her clit.

She’s burning from the inside out, now—and she’s forgotten everything that’s not _heat,_ and want, and _him_ , inside of her, on top of her, pressing her harder against her dress and the floor with every thrust of his hips. Filling her deeper, and holding her, and it feels like there is no part of her that isn’t surrounded by him. Held, protected…

“ _Ar lath ma, vhenan_ ,” he whispers against her skin. “ _Ar lath. Ar—”_

She comes, back arching into him. Pressing closer still as she ruts into him, her cries muffled by his shoulder. Distantly, she’s aware of his thrusts growing erratic, until he grows still for a moment, spilling into her, before his hips twitch a few more times. All while he presses urgent, loving kisses to her face, her neck, her shoulder. Mouthing her name, his love for her, again and again.

Finally he slumps on top of her—shifting them both as he does, so that he is no longer crushing her to the floor. Their limbs still in an awkward tangle, his softening cock only half pulled out of her.

She tucks her face into the crook of his neck, and he shifts so that he is more comfortable, though his arm is still pinned beneath her, and they just… breathe, a moment. Her hand on his chest, she can feel the racing of his heart slowly return to a normal, steady rhythm, as their breaths even out, and the cold evening air begins to sink into her skin once again.

Neither of them say anything for some time. She listens to the sounds of the world outside the carriage, to his steady breaths in her hair, and closes her eyes just so she can focus on the feel of his skin on hers.

He moves first—kissing her hair, running a soothing hand up and down her back. “It will take some time to get you presentable again,” he whispers. It sounds like an apology.

She sighs—making sure to breathe in the smell of his sweat, and attempt to commit it to memory. “I don’t think this dress will ever be presentable again,” she murmurs.

His answering laugh is low, and soft. “I know a spell for wrinkles,” he tells her.

But neither of them makes a move for a little while longer—each reluctant to let the other go. Not knowing when they will hold one another again.

 _If ever_ , she thinks.

And if she holds Solas a little too tightly, in those moments, then he does not seem to mind. Only to kiss her shoulder, and continue to run his hand up and down her back. Not saying anything at all.

 

 

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

She’s seventeen, and Solas has swiped a bottle of champagne from the _soiree_ taking place in his teacher’s home. No one seems to have noticed the absence of the bottle or either of the pupils of the elegant ladies downstairs. She can hear Vivienne’s voice soaring, supported by the high, clear notes coaxed out of a brilliant violin by the opera’s First Chair, Wisdom.

Solas also insisted on swiping glasses—and he’s swirling his now, as if he’s perched on one of the fine couches downstairs instead of an old wooden chair in his bedroom. Though she doesn’t think he even knows what to look for when he does, because he just keeps swirling it, and swirling it.

She only sort of knows—Vivienne had explained it, really, but she apparently doesn’t have the right _palate_ for it, yet, because it normally just takes kind of gross to her.

She’s had a couple glasses of this one, now, and it’s growing on her. She likes the bubbles.

“I once snuck into a circus,” Solas tells her.

She hums. “Really?” she teases, setting her glass aside. She’s given up all pretense of elegance—the only reason she’s not drinking straight out of the bottle is because Solas had looked genuinely _upset_ when she suggested it—and she’s lounging on his bed, her shoes kicked off onto the floor somewhere. Her hair pins are digging into her scalp a little bit, but it’s too much work to put them all back in so they have to stay, comfort be damned.

He takes a drink, and makes a face, but it seems to be more at the memory than the champagne. “Calling it a circus is generous,” he amends. “There were… well. Let’s just say there were unfortunate people marked as outsiders on display, for a cruel man to sell their misfortunes for profit.”

She can’t help but smile up at him, even though he’s still scowling at his drink.

“You talk like a penny dreadful sometimes,” she teases.

His lips twitch a little in reply. But he does not rise to her bait like he usually does.

“There was someone there,” he says, “someone who… a boy, about my age.”

“Which was?”

“Ten. The boy was… deformed. Twisted. The man in charge claimed he was a demon, because his face could take the shape of yours, if you spoke to it long enough.”

“Could it?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“Change shape. His face.”

Solas considers it—while she considers how serious her question was.

Too much champagne, maybe.

“I… don’t know. I did not have the fee for a… private meeting with the boy. Even if I were so curious.”

She doesn’t really want to consider that at all, so she nudges his leg with her toes. “So you snuck in?”

“Under the tent flap,” he admits, pausing to take another drink.

She can’t help a little laugh. “Master criminal, you.”

“Indeed. And I saw the owner of the… _circus_ , in there with him. Beating him. Apparently he had… failed to imitate the last customer properly, and they demanded a refund.”

“Shit. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

He inclines his head. “Neither was I,” he says, softly. Which makes her wonder a little, as she sometimes does, who he was before Wisdom took him in.

“So what did you do?”

“I hid,” he says. “I watched. The boy was in chains—strange chains, made of… I didn’t know what it was at the time, but it glowed blue, in the dark.”

It’s her turn to frown, now. “Lyrium? So the boy was a mage, then?”

“I assumed as much. Some unfortunate apostate child, perhaps with a gift for changing shapes. I waited until the man had gone, and crept over to the cage, and found a way to unfasten the boy’s shackles.”

“Is this the part where you tell me you’ve got a secret apostate under your bed? How many would that make in this house, three? Six? Fifteen?”

He doesn’t even smile, though. His gaze is distant, and he’s swirling the glass again. Utterly lost in thought.

“He vanished the moment the chains were gone,” Solas says. “Just… into thin air. As if he was never there at all.”

The music stops downstairs, and a polite applause rises from the guests of the evening. It startles them both, interrupts the silence that has settled between them, and he takes another drink. Suddenly flushing, a little.

It makes his freckles stand out.

“ _Ir abelas_ ,” he says, “I didn’t bring you up here for… for _ghost stories_ —”

“I thought the Opera Ghost was my friend,” she says, out of the blue.

Solas stares at her. And now _her_ cheeks feel warm, and she’s suddenly embarrassed, so she looks at the ceiling instead of him.

“I thought he was a nice boy. Fifteen, sixteen maybe? Always wore the same ratty clothes. Every time something went missing—and a _lot_ of things used to go missing—I could swear I’d see him with it, later. Like—like a fruit pie that the lead tenor was supposed to eat during the show, I’d see him carrying it off, and we’d find it later in the dancers’ dressing room. Or all the prop swords jammed into a box in a closet everyone forgot about, for some reason.”

She glances over at him, briefly, before looking back up at the ceiling. He is watching her intently, now, his glass resting on his knee. His expression very serious—and that makes her feel a little better, honestly. Like he’s not about to make fun of her.

“Thing is, I used to insist that he was a real, flesh and blood person. His name was… I can’t remember, now. And I used to get _so mad_ , that no one could see him but me. It was _so important_ , but I don’t know why.”

She doesn’t realise that she’s trailed off, lost in thought, until Solas asks, “When did you stop?”

She inhaled, slowly. “It was… There was a hat. A prop hat. Big, wide-brimmed thing—for some comedic opera, I think. Oh, _Pastoria_ , right, there was a tenor who wore it, he was the drunk uncle. Or maybe a scarecrow. Or the scarecrow _was_ the drunk uncle…?”

Solas chuckles a little. “Clearly a masterpiece that will last the ages.”

“I was _eleven_ ,” she chides, but without much force behind it. “And—anyway, it’s not important. We were putting everything away after the show while the adults celebrated opening night. And I think, one minute, I had that hat, because the tenor forgot it backstage, and I was going to take it to his dressing room…”

She remembers that hat, clear as day—the shiny buckle on it, polished to gleaming every night. The spot on the brim that had torn during a dress rehearsal, and the three loose threads hanging out.

“I never got there,” she says, softly. “I remember—Varric found me crying in the hallway. No hat in sight. But I couldn’t tell him why.”

The air is too heavy, now. The silence hanging too close to her skin, and weighing down her heart—so she shakes her head, sits up enough to grab her champagne, and props herself up on the bedframe so she can see Solas properly. “And they were so furious it was lost, that they searched the dancers’ quarters for hours. Everyone. The tenor, the maestro, even the manager were all in there, turning over beds and shaking blankets, yelling at us and calling us thieves.”

“Did they find it?”

She takes a drink, and then shakes her head. “Never did,” she says. “But all their yelling upset some of the younger girls so much that they were all crying. So I sang to them to calm them, like I always did.”

“Ah. I believe I have heard this part of the story. A certain well-regarded soprano had come to see what all the fuss was about…”

“In the midst of telling off the staff for frightening all the young dancers, she heard me singing. And the rest,” she says, raising her glass like she’s giving a toast, “is history.”

Solas politely raises his glass in turn, and joins her.

He only takes a sip—she finishes her glass, however.

“Fascinating,” he says as she holds out her glass for him to fill. He obliges her by pouring some in—but there’s only enough left in the bottle to splash around in the bottom of the glass.

“You should have stolen a less empty bottle,” she teases him.

“I wanted to _remember_ tonight,” he tells her, placing the empty bottle on the floor beside him.

“And why is that?” she wonders.

The question causes his fingers to still, a moment, on the neck of the bottle. “Hm?”

“What _did_ you want to do up here, Solas?” she asks. Leaning forward a little, trying to read his expression. He’s desperately trying not to _have_ one, like he does when his thoughts are racing. “It’s not tell ghost stories, and it’s not drink ourselves stupid, and I believe you’ve gone a record time with me alone without kissing me—”

“I want to make love to you,” he blurts.

Her mouth hangs open.

His entire face is redder than she’s ever seen it. He opens his mouth again, closes it, and makes as if to drink but then rests his glass on his knee again. “Forgive me,” he says, “that was—that was _not_ how I planned on—”

“Yes,” she says. It comes out breathy, and low, and it makes Solas’s eyes go dark, and his face get even redder.

But then he huffs out a laugh, and runs a hand over his hair—come out of its tie somewhat, little wisps of it falling over his face in spite of his attempts to smooth it down. “I had a _plan_ , you know,” he says, sounding a little put out.

“Oh?” she says. “I’m sorry, then, let’s restart. Tell me in great detail how you were going to seduce me.”

“ _Seduce_ —” he makes a face, and she can’t help a laugh. “I was—I was going to offer you a refreshment.”

She raises her glass. “Consider me refreshed.”

“And then—stop making me laugh—and then I was going to ask that you make yourself comfortable.”

“Solas, I am _exceedingly_ comfortable. We’ve had an entire conversation and I’m not even crammed up next to a broom. Or sitting on a mop bucket.”

His eyes glance up and down the whole length of her—lingering a moment on her stockinged ankles, which makes her feel a little warmer than just a look should.

He clears his throat. “I was going to offer you the chair.”

“How gentlemanly of you.”

“And then you—you kicked off your shoes and I was distracted—”

She nearly snorts, but manages to restrain herself. “I guess you can’t really see my ankles in a broom closet.”

“—and I decided I would… gather a little courage, before I proceeded to tell you that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Any further teasing she had planned dies on her lips.

“That you are—” he pauses, his gaze finding hers. He holds it a moment, before his eyes flick down to her lips, still parted in surprise. “That you are perfect, in every way. And that I—and that…”

As she stares at him, and he stares back, he gives a little shrug, and shakes his head helplessly.

“ _Ar lath, ma vhenan_ ,” he says. “May I—may I make love to you?”

She sits up properly, now, and sets her glass aside. And she stands—though her knees are shaking a little, and her heart is racing—and she reaches out to take Solas’s free hand between her own.

“Only after I tell you,” she says, low and soft, “that—how am I supposed to follow _that_?”

He laughs. He sets his glass on the floor, so hastily it nearly tips clean over, and then pulls her to him.

“I mean it,” she complains, as their noses touch. “Here you are, all smooth lines and _perfect voice_ , and I’m sitting here totally unprepared because I’ve wanted you to say all that for _months_ now and even in my head I didn’t picture it that… that _poetic_.”

He laughs again, and he has such an irresistible laugh that she can’t help but kiss him. Urgent, and delighted, and laughing against his lips the whole while.

“Perfect voice?” he teases, when they part for air. His lips brushing against hers, and sending a shiver down her spine.

She hums, and nips at his bottom lip. Revels in the surprised breath he sucks in, and how his pupils blow just a little wider. “Of course. Though I’m _really_ looking forward to seeing how nimble your fingers are without your violin.”

 

She has a flower for the grave of the woman who was once Wisdom, and a flower for her father.

She has to go further into the cemetery than Solas does, to the pauper’s graves, but she finds no damage to the stone. The price she had asked for joining the opera, it is plain, and simple, with only the name _Lavellan_ on it.

When Vivienne began teaching her, she used to have lofty dreams of having it replaced with something grander. Or even, just a violin engraved on it.

Bull stands near her, somewhat off to the side. Giving her space for the moment—but she is in no danger here, she knows that. There are no great monuments for someone to hide behind—just a number of stones no taller than her knee, or wooden markers long left to rot.

Solas joins them eventually, though she does not turn to look at him when she hears his shoes crunching in the snow. She can _feel_ him looking about the area with a critical eye, but Bull has given no signal. They are not being watched.

“So,” Bull says at length. “What’s the plan, boss?”

She takes a deep, steadying breath.

“We put on his opera,” she says, not looking back at either of the men behind her. She reaches out to brush some of the snow off her father’s grave. “We do everything exactly as he says.”

“Draw him out, then.” She hears him rub his hands together—the poor man must be freezing. The big Qunari’s never liked the cold, not as long as she’s known him. “He’ll never sit by and watch, he’ll be putting himself in the show before the first act is through. So, we invite the city guard? Shoot him while he makes his grand entrance?”

“I don’t believe that would do any more than make it angry,” Solas says, as passively as one comments on the weather.

“Uh…” Bull coughs, and she can hear the creak of leather as he turns and looks at Solas. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I suspect our _opera ghost_ is not a ghost at all,” Solas says. “But rather, a spirit. And in order to beat a spirit, one must resort to… different means, than weapons.”

And it’s strange—but it’s like very suddenly, there is someone sitting on the ground just beside her. Where a moment before, there was only snow.

“Hurting, helpless, hasty,” he says. And she looks now, to see a pale boy, dressed poorly for the weather, with a broad hat.

A broad hat that… went missing from the props room, when she was a little girl. She remembers that buckle, and the pulled threads on the brim.

“What happens to the hammer,” the boy says, staring directly ahead and at nothing in particular, “when there are no more nails?”

He looks at her then with eerily pale eyes. But… he doesn’t look quite _at_ her, really. It’s  
almost like he’s looking somewhere just past her. Maybe over her shoulder, or…

“Holy shit,” Bull says, but she is only distantly aware of him. She finds herself leaning closer, frowning, because there’s something about… something about his face…

“I’ve seen you before,” she says.

His lips twitch upward; an eerie imitation of a smile. “Yes.”

“You—you snuck a blueberry pie from that baker. For Cassandra. I saw you do it.” She inhales, sharply. “ _Cole_. Your name is Cole. How did I—”

“Forget? I made you. You were… upset, when no one could see me. Too old for an imaginary friend. And then I left, because… I did not understand, what I was. Am. Like I do now.”

“Where the— _fuck_ , Boss, don’t _talk to it,_ get behind me. Solas, what the—”

“You may relax, Bull. I believe that Cole is a spirit of Compassion,” Solas explains, “and the one who began rumours of an opera ghost when we were children. The source of our current problems is an entirely separate spirit, which took up the position sometime in the last year.”

“Envy is hurting you,” Cole says, drawing her gaze back to his impossibly pale eyes, “mirrors on mirrors on memories. I want to help.” He gives her that strange, almost-smile again. “You,” he clarifies, “not Envy.”

“Envy?” She turns to look at Solas, brow furrowing. “I don’t understand. Why would a spirit of _envy_ want to run an opera house so badly?”

Bull runs a hand over his face. “Guy just appears out of thin air,” he grumbles, “and _that’s_ the question she asks.”

“It does not,” Solas replies. “It plans to learn enough about its intended target to make itself into a reasonable likeness, and then kill them and take their place.”

“ _It’s intended target_ ,” Bull parrots. “Oh for—Solas, how long have you known that some _insane demon_ wants to rip my friend’s head off and take her place in the opera? Who _else_ has that… _thing_ killed so it can, what, wear a pretty dress and sing some high notes on stage?”

Something dark crosses Solas’s expression for half a heartbeat before he controls himself, and his face is passive once more. It makes her think of Wisdom, and her hands curl in her dress.

“Bull,” she says, gently, “that’s enough.”

He gives her a long look—which she returns, unblinking—before he sighs heavily.

“Alright,” he says, “okay, let’s—let’s pretend for a minute that I’m not _really freaked out_ by this, and let me ask… what exactly do we need to do in order to kill a spirit? Such as, uh…”

“The plan is, essentially, the same,” Solas explains. “We pretend to play along with Envy’s wishes. We set a trap for opening night—and we spring it when Envy takes to the stage. The trap simply involves a complicated magic rune that Dorian and I will need to lay while everyone _else_ focuses on keeping Envy’s attention away from us.”

“And then what? We run up to it and stab it with a bunch of prop swords? Cross our fingers and hope for the best?”

“Probably something sharper than prop swords,” Cole suggests.

“Leave that to me,” Solas says, adjusting the sleeves of his coat. “For now, we focus on keeping Envy from fleeing into the audience when we confront it—and allowing it to believe that it has won, until the moment the trap is sprung.”

Bull crosses his arms and scowls at Solas a little more. He glances back at her for a moment, seems to decide something, then sighs again. “Fine,” he says. “I don’t like it, but it’s the only plan we’ve got, I guess, so I’m in.”

“It’s better than sitting here waiting to lose your face,” Cole says.

From Bull’s expression, his words are the opposite of a comfort.

 

It’s been five years since Wisdom died. Since… Solas left, and never came back.

And for all she talked about leaving the moment her contract was up, Lavellan stays.

Part of it intentional, part of it not—some of the dancers take ill one particularly nasty winter, and she takes on another two years to pay for a healer from the Circle to come help them. And then they lose their patron, and she’s honestly glad to still be there just to look after the dancers as the opera flounders for financial backing—and puts out a couple serious flops, before Varric takes over as manager and gets the place remotely back on track.

But it feels less like giving up time and more like… stalling. And she still has plenty to learn from Vivienne, and she does not honestly think another opera house will take her on with just her dancing alone.

There are still parties she is expected to attend—and at first they seem _impossibly_ dull without Solas to wink at her from across a room, or drag her off into a closet or up to his bedroom. Varric and Cassandra do their best to keep her entertained, and Vivienne keeps the older men who like to buy her “presents” at bay as she always has.

She thinks of Solas sometimes. Looks out the carriage as they drive by—catching a glimpse of Wisdom’s old home, with darkened windows and drawn curtains. Hoping that maybe she will see a light on in the attic, after all this time.

The opera house is taken on by a new patron the year she turns twenty-two—a dashing young Tevinter man by the name Dorian Pavus, overseeing his father’s business contacts in the city. There are a hundred rumours clamoring about him—none of them particularly flattering, but Aevalle has seen rich men come and go, and he’s the first not to make a pass at all the young dancers, so he can’t be half as bad as they say.

She and Bull find him drunk in an alley outside the opera house one night, and… well. She’s had friendships spring up from weirder places, certainly. Like sitting on top of stone caskets, with a broken ankle, in the dark.

And. Well. When Dorian offers to buy out her contract, offer her the contacts and the chance to go wherever she wants in exchange for a little white lie…

What’s another year of her life?

“I believe I warned you about taking gifts from wealthy men,” Vivienne says one afternoon as they tidy up their sheet music.

Lavellan resists the urge to tug at the necklace she’s wearing. It’s probably worth more than anything the dancers own—delicate and light, she should hardly feel it around her neck, but it seems heavy under Vivienne’s gaze.

“You did,” she agrees. “I’m being careful.”

That seems to satisfy Vivienne more than any apology ever would. “Of course you are, my dear,” she says, sweeping across the practice room to the door.

They part ways in the hall—Vivienne off to attend to her dear Bastien, and Lavellan back to the dancers’ quarters at the other end of the opera house. She takes the long way around, as she usually does—and while she walks with a casual air, and smiles and waves and greets whoever she comes across, she’s really doing rounds. Checking to make sure Sera’s remembering to tie the sandbags correctly, and that Dagna’s not leaving canisters lying around open again, that the younger dancers are all in practice, that the little girls newest to their pointe shoes aren’t grimacing with _too_ much pain.

That’s about as far as she gets through her usual route, however, when she passes close enough to the theatre proper to hear music.

A violin, specifically—and she tilts her head curiously, because she hadn’t thought Varric had another audition for First Chair booked. The others had been such disappointments, she’d honestly thought he’d given up on the whole idea and was just going to promote someone from within. It draws her closer, swinging around through a servant’s stair that will bring her to the balcony—with very thin walls, so she can hear properly.

And the song makes her pause. Her hand lingering on the doorframe, her breath caught in her throat.

She’s only heard this song once before—she was seventeen, and Wisdom had invited Vivienne and herself over for the evening…

_Vivienne, darling, may I borrow your voice for a moment? I can’t sort out for the life of me what this is missing…_

_My dear, I’ve been practicing my aria all day and I’m utterly hoarse. Miss Lavellan would be delighted to help you, I’m sure._

_Ah! There’s an idea. Here’s the score, darling, let me just go fetch Solas._

She takes the stairs two at a time.

She bursts onto the balcony, where a number of the opera house’s cleaning staff have paused from their dusting to lean and peer, curiously, towards the stage below. One or two of them spare a glance at her as she dashes up to the rail—nearly throwing herself over it in her haste, as the violin swells, and the lone man on the stage sways to music only three people alive have ever heard.

She almost sings it—opens her mouth even, takes a breath at the appropriate point.

 _Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye…_  

She grips the rail and squints, trying to get a better look at the man on stage—she can’t see his face, and not all the lights are on, but she can make out rather plain, functional clothing, the fashion perhaps a few years old but that’s not unusual for musicians. He’s bald—which gives her pause—but she has an easy view of his pointed ears, even from here.

And he plays _magnificently_.

He’s utterly brilliant—possibly even a better violinist than Wisdom herself. He sweeps over chords without slipping once, the sound he pulls from those strings clear and bright. Better than she remembers—and even though he lacks a partner for this duet, his music fills the room on its own, bold and warm and full of a wistful longing that she does not remember in their only performance together, the only time she has heard this song played. In front of the fire in Wisdom’s home, Vivienne lounging on a chaise, and Wisdom watching them both with a warm and knowing smile.

One by one, the cleaners begin to move on—she hardly even notices them go. But she stays, watching, her eyes wide and a warmth in her chest that surprises her, after all this time.

“If you ever find a moment,” she sings under her breath, utterly caught up in the music, “spare a thought for me.”

When the song draws to an end, and the final notes ring throughout the theater, there’s a sound behind her—right behind her, just over her shoulder. Like a breath, or a sigh.

When she turns around, no one is there.

Before she can think too hard on that, her attention is brought back to the stage—or rather to the seating directly before the orchestra pit, where one Varric Tethras is standing up, the creak of his chair as he does echoing in the silence.

“Chuckles,” he says, and she can picture the smile on his face just from how warm his voice sounds. “It’s good to have you back.”

On stage, Solas inclines his head. “The pleasure is mine, old friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> valyrias: aw  
> valyrias: still needs sin  
> playwithdinos: WE JUST HAD SIN
> 
> \--  
> Find me on tumblr at [playwithdinos](http://playwithdinos.tumblr.com/) or [dinoswrites](http://dinoswrites.tumblr.com/).


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